My Gift - A Digital Archive

Now that I have been blogging for about 2 months, I can't help but feel kind of ...regretful.. that I did not start earlier. Like all parents, I really cherish the times that my children and I have together and I realise these times will not last forever. I always believe that our children do not really belong to us; we are here to guide them for the first 20 years or so before they become full-fledged adults.

Every minute I have with them is the "now" that will never come back again. We can't return, we can only look behind from where we came (sounds familiar?). That is why it is so important (to me, at least) to document their growing years. And that is also why I have decided to start a new label/tag called "Reminiscence" where I may occasionally write about those days before I started the blog. Hmm... like when they were babies!

Such documentation is not a new-fangled idea, of course. My mother used to bring us siblings to the photo studio on each of our birthdays to take a birthday photo. During those times, a camera was a luxury and not many households owned one. We would pose stiffly in a well-lit studio, wearing our sunday best - (please, not our birthday suits :)). My mother still keeps those black-and-white photos in a yellow-edged photo album. It's our personal archive.

With Son No 1, my significant other and I faithfully took photographs of him right from Day 1 and recorded every step of his growth. These were statics. Although we owned a video recorder, we did not find it as handy compared to snapping a photo. The photos, which I painstakingly labelled with printed captions, are arranged in albums and remain a source of enjoyment for all the children as they flip through the pages.

With Sons No 2 and 3, the photographs got fewer in number. With increasing childcare responsibility, taking photographs, developing them and arranging them in albums with printed captions - well, it just took too much effort.

When digital cameras became the norm, things got simpler. We would take the photos and upload them in files. Hallelujah! That was what we were doing until this blogging business began.

Now, in addition to taking digital photos, I have a platform to record thoughts and conversations as well as add comments to all things sundry. In time to come, I hope the boys would appreciate this gift to them - their own digital archive.

Now that's a good reason to buy Google shares (the owner of blogger) and help ensure they do not fold! Seriously, I wonder whether blogger and other blog hosts realise what an important function they play as custodians of people's thoughts, ramblings, hopes and digital treasures.

To Joni Mitchell fans, they would have recognised that in the second paragraph, I have made reference to the lyrics of one of her songs, a favourite of mine called The Circle Game. The song is touching in its simplicity and never fails to remind me the transience of time. Thought I will share it here for the younger generation!